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The danger of big corporations controlling renewable energy systems

Whose renewable future? New Internationalist  MARCH 2015 Is big business poised to capture the renewables revolution? Danny Chivers draws up the battle lines. 

“……Who has power over power?

As wind and solar technology gets cheaper – and if low oil prices and increasing climate regulation and extraction costs make fossil fuels less profitable – we can expect more and bigger corporate players to move into the sector, including existing oil and gas corporations.

Energy supply in many countries is already in the hands of privatized utility companies, thanks to decades of privatization driven by neoliberal Northern governments and institutions like the World Bank. This has led to rising energy bills and the continuing failure to supply grid electricity to harder-to-reach (and thus less profitable) rural communities. Around 1.3 billion people worldwide still have no access to electricity, while many others struggle to afford it.

There are vital battles still to be fought over the ownership, control of and access to renewable energy. Who will pay for and own the building materials, the factories, the technical knowledge, the site of installation, the equipment and the energy it produces? The more democratic control that can be exerted over each stage of this process, the greater our chances of creating low-impact, climate-friendly energy systems that supply affordable energy to all. We also need the transition to be a fair one that retrains and transfers workers from the fossil energy sector; this will only happen if the voices of workers carry more weight in the process than the desires of the energy companies.

It’s hard to imagine the big privatized companies voluntarily working to reduce energy consumption in the North; it’s equally hard to envision them supporting a phase-out of fossil fuels as renewables expand, or supporting policies to provide affordable energy to those most in need. These companies have been driving our civilization towards a cliff edge, and now they are eyeing up the keys to our shiny, new, renewably powered electric bus……… http://newint.org/features/2015/03/01/renewable-energy-keynote/

March 9, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, politics, renewable